Co-chairs of the legislature’s Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee Rep. Gregg Haddad, D-Mansfield and Sen. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford, recently announced their committee will prioritize a proposal to expand the Connecticut Higher Education Student Loan Authority (CHESLA) in response to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) removing nursing from its list of professional degree programs during the upcoming legislative session.
According to CHESLA deputy director Josh Hurlock, the bill will propose establishing a new state-level graduate loan program. Slap said that once enacted, the bill would help at least 2,000 students in the initial phase. Hurlock said the program would scale over time and its goal was not just to replace the Grad PLUS loan program, which is ending on July 1, but to make higher education more affordable.
CHESLA is a quasi-public body that positions itself as being able to offer alternative financing options to students who have exhausted financial aid or who are looking for alternative loan programs. According to a 2025 report, CHESLA gave out roughly $500,000 in scholarships in 2025.
Speaking at the press conference, Haddad said legislators and education stakeholders and advocates were there to “address a grave and unprecedented threat to the future of higher education in this country” and that recent changes to federal loans resulting from H.R. 1, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The DOE’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education Committee recently announced that nursing degrees would no longer be considered post-baccalaureate professional degrees and nursing programs would be reclassified as graduate degrees, reducing the amount of student loans nursing students are eligible to receive from $200,000 to $100,000 and codifying a change to the definition of professional degrees made in H.R. 1.
Haddad said the change will sabotage the state’s ability to meet critical workforce needs. He added that the changes in H.R. 1 threaten higher education by placing “arbitrary caps on direct federal loans for graduate studies” and by cancelling the Grad PLUS loan program for new borrowers.
The bill lowers the cap on direct federal loans to graduate students to $20,500 annually and a $100,000 lifetime limit. It also cancels the Grad PLUS loan program, with both changes going into effect on July 1.
Haddad said Connecticut students receive an estimated $90 million in Grad PLUS loans. He said the new lowered cap on borrowing is an “arbitrary ceiling” that does not reflect the reality of rising tuition and will “force students to turn to a predatory private market.” He also characterized the end of the Grad PLUS loan program as “pay to play” that will ensure “only the wealthy can afford graduate degrees.”
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